Ngoc Tung’s father died when he was very young and his mother left home when he was just two years old. Being fed up with family circumstances and ashamed of his poor fate, Tung ran away from home to Hanoi to pursue an automobile painting career. Everyday, he has contact with harmful chemicals, which seems to make his body become smaller and smaller.

With 15 year-old boy Doan Quang Long, no one knows how far he has to go on foot to sell lottery tickets everyday. Having lived a hard life, Long looks much older than his age.

Early child labour is mainly due to low income and poor economic status. Because of poverty, many parents pin their hopes on their children’s effort to earn money. They want to improve their living standards so much that they don’t care what their children do, where they orbit or how they live. As Nguyen Thi Huong from Ky Anh district in central Ha Tinh province said. In fact, children working at young ages make quite large contributions to their families. Many of them have even become the breadwinner as they get more than VND20,000/day. But many others earn only between VND6,000-10,000/ day. However, they have to work very hard for at least 7 hours a day and soon find themselves in poor health and spirit.

Without family care and living in unsafe conditions, they do not have free time to play and have fun as they should at this age of their life. Apart from suffering bad impacts on their health and spirit, they are easily subject to negative phenomena such as drug addiction and sex abuse.

An effective support model

According to the HCM City Department of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs, the city has more than 10,000 underprivileged children, including street children, and child labourers. Due to a real concern for unfortunate children, two foreign volunteers, Koen Van Acoleyen from Belgium and Sebas Sebastien Barmaz from Switzerland have taught English for impoverished youngsters since 1995. After that, with help from other volunteers, the Education Organisation for Development was set up in HCM City in 1996. One of the organisation’s founders, Koen Van Acoleyen, said, “ We want to provide opportunities for children to help them live a better life. We have opened English teaching classes, and provided vocational training and free healthcare services for them so that they can find suitable jobs.”

Thanks to different projects implemented by the organisation, many street children have become well-educated and gradually stabilised their lives.

Pham Thi Ut was born in 1985. When she was just a little girl her mother passed away and her father had to bring up four children himself due to poor living conditions. She had to move from Can Tho province to Ho Chi Minh City to make a living. Luckily, she was introduced to the May 15 boarding School and has just finished the 12^th grade to land a job at the New World hotel.

Since it came into operation 10 years ago, the Education for Development Organization has developed many major programmes. The organization has cooperated with the Ho Chi Minh City Association for Child Support, the May 15 School, the Dang Tran Con primary school and the Ho Chi Minh City Centre for Youth Education to launch various programmes to improve local partners’ capacity.

Ruth Frans, a volunteer from the Netherlands, who is also a coordinator of the organization, said: “We no longer provide direct services as before. We now focus on training local partners to promote their direct services. Then we assign centers and local partners to carry out programmes. We have changed the form of operation but our goals are the same.” However, Ms Ruth Frans said to help disadvantaged children get a job and have a stable life, there are many factors that the organization cannot have an impact on. Hoang Thanh Linh, an officer of the organization, attributed this to the fact that social programmes did not meet economic development programmes. Economic programmes don’t consider child-related factors while discussing development issues. Hence, the matter is how to create a common venue for these programmes.”

How to properly resolve child labour issue

According to Pham Ngoc Tien, deputy head of the Protection Department under the Ministry of Invalids and Social Affairs, to resolve problems relating to child labour, the Ministry has pointed out several key measures. Among them are economic development, poverty reduction, law enforcement and information dissemination aimed at raising public awareness of child labour abuse and providing disadvantaged children with support for their study and vocational training courses. It is also necessary to have the cooperation of agencies and organizations to prevent child labour abuse and deal with violations of children’s rights.

Regarding education for underprivileged children, the Ministry of Education and Training will boost education popularization, waive tuition fees and provide textbooks for pupils with difficulties. The education sector, relevant agencies, localities and kind-hearted people promote fund-raising activities in support of poor pupils so that all children have an opportunity to go to school.

However, it is not easy to resolve child labour-related issues sustainably, as most children voluntarily take part in working activities. Therefore, it is vital to create favourable conditions and provide them with vocational training courses so that they can both work and study. Moreover, it is difficult to completely solve street children’s problems. Family always plays an important role in resolving such issues. There are some families with difficulties that need assistance from the wider society and community. Nevertheless, it is necessary to criticize families which have adequate living conditions but still let their children earn their living on the streets.